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The Southeast Missouri University Foundation has announced a $40 million comprehensive campaign, the most ambitious fund-raising effort in the University’s history, to directly support current and future students.

The campaign, named “Honoring Tradition, Inspiring Success,” is focused on increasing scholarships and supporting programs and renovations that benefit students.

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about President Dobbins

Kenneth W. Dobbins

17th President

Dr. Kenneth W. Dobbins became the seventeenth president of Southeast Missouri State
University on July 1, 1999 after serving as the University’s Vice President of Finance
and Administration from 1991 to 1993, and Executive Vice President from 1993 until
his appointment as president. He previously held several positions in higher education
administration at Kent State University in Ohio.

During his tenure at Southeast, academic programs have been enhanced including the
establishment of the College of Science, Technology, and Agriculture and the Earl
and Margie Holland School of Visual and Performing Arts which opened in fall 2007
on the new River Campus. A comprehensive review of all academic and non-academic
programs has been accomplished to maintain quality and minimize student fee increases
in the face of significant state appropriation reductions. Southeast continues to
be recognized nationally for many of its outstanding accredited academic programs
by such prestigious publications as U.S. News Best Colleges and Princeton Review.

Enrollment has increased significantly since a 20-year-low in 1994 when approximately
7,900 students attended Southeast. Total enrollment for fall 2014 was 12,087 marking
the 20th straight year of enrollment growth and the 14th year of record- breaking
enrollment. The goal of making Southeast Missouri State University enrollment equal
to the diversity of the state of Missouri has been accomplished with a historic record
African American enrollment (more than 1,000) and international students (1,100).
The progress made in this area is remarkable, considering the University only had
315 African American students enrolled at Southeast in 1996, and international student
enrollment was once as low as 176 in 2005.

Additionally, access to higher education has increased dramatically during President
Dobbins’ tenure with record enrollments in the University’s 25-county service region
due to the establishment of new regional campuses in Sikeston and Kennett serving
place-bound students in and near those rural communities. Dual credit provides affordable
credit courses to more than 1,000 high school students and has grown dramatically
over the past several years with 48 high schools participating. Finally, the Southeast
Online degree programs continue to be very popular with students with more than 1,000
students taking 100 percent of their courses online. Online courses are now generating
more than 22,000 credit hours a semester, more than many major public research institutions.

While serving as president, Dr. Dobbins was instrumental in developing an innovative
post-professorial merit program which provides base salary increases and professional
development funds. With this program, faculty become eligible to apply for post-professorial
merit five years after attaining the rank of full professor and every five years thereafter.
Those awarded this distinction meet the same criteria of sustained service, teaching
and scholarship as that required for promotion to full professor, following the same
process of peer and administrative review.

Dr. Dobbins also initiated a partnership with The Center for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS), a bipartisan, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington,
D.C. The Center’s 220 full-time staff and large network of affiliated scholars conduct
research and analysis and help develop national policy initiatives that look to the
future and anticipate change. Southeast was one of the first and is now the only
institution nationally selected to partner in student seminars with CSIS and the University
annually sends 35 students to participate in the week-long spring break seminar.

During Dr. Dobbins’ presidency more than $400 million in capital construction and
building improvement projects have enhanced the University. The Seabaugh Polytechnic
Building and the $58 million River Campus were constructed. In 2005, the Douglas
C. Greene Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship was opened, followed by the dedication
of the state-of-the-art David M. Barton Agriculture Research Center in 2009, and the
University’s Autism Center for Diagnosis and Treatment in 2010. Southeast is known
throughout the Midwest for its modern and student-friendly residence halls. Vandiver
Hall was completed in 2002; Merick Hall in 2009; and LaFerla Hall was dedicated in
the fall of 2013. More than $90 million in capital renovation projects were completed
in 2013, including the renovation of the historic 108-year-old Academic Hall, and
the remodeling and upgrades to the Magill science complex. Additionally, the University
opened the River Campus Center, a new academic and residence hall center, at the River
Campus in fall 2014.

Dr. Dobbins has served a two-year term as president of the Missouri Council on Public
Higher Education (COPHE), the organization for presidents and chancellors of Missouri’s
public colleges and universities, and is the senior member of the organization. He
was appointed by Missouri Governor Jay Nixon as a commissioner for the Midwestern
Higher Education Compact (MHEC) which covers a nine-state region of the Midwest.
MHEC is one of four interstate compacts in the nation devoted to advancing cooperation
and resource sharing in higher education.

In 2007, he was selected to serve a three-year term on the American Association of
State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) Board of Directors, an organization which
represents over 420 U.S. public college and university presidents and more than 3.7
million students or 56 percent of the enrollment at all public four-year institutions.
He was elected Secretary-Treasurer of the organization in 2008, chaired the organization
in 2010-2011, and again served on the AASCU Board in 2013. For the past ten years,
he has served as one of five faculty members for the week-long AASCU New Presidents’
Academy providing instruction to more than 200 new presidents and chancellors. He
currently chairs the Finance Committee of the American Academic Leadership Institute
and the AASCU Financial Review Committee He previously served three years as president
of the Ohio Valley Conference and is currently a member of the Conference finance
committee. He has been elected to the St. Louis Regional Chamber Board of Directors
and is a member of the Hawthorne Foundation.

In addition, he is the vice president for membership on the executive board of the
Greater St. Louis Council, Boy Scouts of America, and was elected by local council
associates to serve on the National Council, Boy Scouts of America. In 2010, he was
awarded the Silver Beaver Award, the highest honor bestowed upon a Boy Scout volunteer
by a council.

He earned his B.S. degree in accounting from the University of Akron (Ohio) in 1971
and served as a commissioned officer and civilian executive in the U.S. Air Force
for almost 10 years where he was awarded the 1978 Air Force Audit Agency Outstanding
Civilian Auditor of the Year. He received the M.B.A. degree in 1979 from Old Dominion
University where he was awarded the 2001 Distinguished Alumni Award, and the Ph.D.
in higher education administration in 1987 from Kent State, where in 2011, he was
awarded the Alumni Leadership Award for the College of Education, Health and Human
Services Annual Hall of Fame Awards. He is also a Certified Public Accountant in Ohio.

Dr. Dobbins and his wife, Jeanine Larson Dobbins, Founder and Director Emeritus of
the Missouri Statewide Early Literacy Intervention Program based at Southeast, have
a son, Paul Larson Dobbins, and a daughter-in-law Stacey Borage Dobbins, who are both
Southeast graduates, and two grandsons, Lincoln Kenneth Dobbins and Brady Larson Dobbins.